


I'm reaching out for your hope

by Elisexyz



Series: Mental Health Whump Timeless Challenge [1]
Category: Timeless (TV 2016)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Christmas Isn't Canon, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/M, Post-Canon, Pre-Relationship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-04
Updated: 2019-05-04
Packaged: 2020-02-16 06:52:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,268
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18686359
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Elisexyz/pseuds/Elisexyz
Summary: Lucy is doing okay.(More or less.)





	I'm reaching out for your hope

**Author's Note:**

> This was written for the prompt "Sleep" in the [Mental Health Whump Challenge by newisalwaysbetter](https://heytheredeann.tumblr.com/post/184648324764/mental-health-whump). Since I've missed the first three prompts it's already obvious that I won't manage to fill them all, but I'll try to work out as many as I can, it's such a wonderful idea!  
>    
>  For the record, the only reason why these two aren't together (yet) in this verse is that Lucy is scared and Flynn is incompetent. This has been a PSA.  
>   
>  Title from [here](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4l7fhxNrrrM).

Lucy has a big, empty house full of good memories trying to suffocate her, a crippling desire for company and a friend in need of a place to stay. Of course as soon as Denise manages to clear Flynn of any charge she offers him the guest room in her house.

He’s a little awkward about it, she can tell that he doesn’t want to impose, and it doesn’t take long for her to gently say: “I’m not really doing this for you, the house is too big and I want company, okay?”

(She has yet to regret ever opening up to him, showing her deck like that has become kind of an habit.)

He smiles with obvious gratitude and soon enough he’s on her doorstep, shouldering a bag of everything he owns – mostly clothes that Denise got him when they first broke him out of prison, because with everything going on they never had any time for shopping; fixing that might actually be a good idea, they were well compensated for their work against Rittenhouse and all their trouble, after all, money isn’t really an issue at the moment.

Lucy is doing okay.

The first few weeks back have been very surreal: she has finally her head out of the ground and in the right _century_ , she has to go back to a normal life, to grocery shopping and paying bills and pretending like she can cook her own food every day at every meal— she feels very out of place.

Plus, her house is silent. Her mother is dead. Amy is gone, permanently wiped away from history, nothing but a bunch of fleeting memories and a small picture. Lucy is the only one left, and she spent what feels like a decade living underground in a bunker with half a dozen more people and, recently, a toddler. _Quiet_ hasn’t been the norm in a very long time, not for her.

The first day, her head revelled in the silence, she sat down on the couch and watched some tv, she took a long hot shower without closing the door or worrying about consuming all the water— it was peaceful, like a good dream.

The following days started to drag out, she soon didn’t have much left to do and she couldn’t seem to convince her body that there was no impending crisis waiting to happen, and she found herself resisting the urge to call her friends just to hear somebody else’s voice.

But it’s alright: she just has bad moments, Rittenhouse is still gone and everything is okay.

(She still immediately jumped at the occasion of having Flynn around 24/7 though.)

Lucy’s real problem are the nights.

Actually, that’s a bit of an exaggeration: it can’t be _that_ big of a problem if she found a solution that’s more or less effective, can it?

She soon found out that she couldn’t fall asleep in her bedroom. It’s just too—too _big_. It’s a bit ridiculous coming from someone who’s claustrophobic and who couldn’t _wait_ to go back to living on the surface, but she can’t help feeling small in her queen bed in the middle of a room that doesn’t feel much like her own anymore.

Not to mention, her room has _windows_. Windows are an entry point, windows are dangerous. She got too used to having only a door to worry about. And a roommate.

(After Jessica joined the team again, it soon became clear that Lucy needed to find a more stable arrangement than the couch, so they pushed a second bed in Flynn’s room, which made sense, considering that she often sneaked in there anyway.)

It didn’t take long for Lucy to push aside all the junk in a relatively small, windowless room that they used for storage. She pushed a camp bed in there and made it into her new place to sleep.

(Just for a while, until she gets used to her new normal.)

When Flynn comes along, she’s still very much sleeping in the storage room, and she has no intention of telling him. She tells herself she just needs to set her alarm really early, so that she can wake up before he’s even out of his room, and everything is going to be fine.

(Yeah, as if.)

It’s Flynn’s fourth night as her guest when he knocks on the door to her unofficial bedroom, lightly enough that for a long moment she considers ignoring him.

“Come in,” she eventually says, loudly enough for him to hear. She’s sitting on her bed with her back against the wall and her knees up to her chest, and she isn’t all that surprised that he figured it out. At this point, pretending like nothing happened wouldn’t solve much.

Flynn waits a few moments before slowly opening the door, not yet actually walking in. “Have you got room for one more in there?” he asks, with a slight smile.

Lucy shrugs, hoping that he’ll see even at the crappy light from her old lamp, and she shifts a little towards her left to make room for him.

He closes the door behind him before slowly sitting on the bed, evidently mistrustful of it.

“I’m pretty sure it can hold both of us,” she mutters, a note of light teasing in her voice even though she doesn’t really have it in her to be amused right now.

The sinister creaking that follows his every movement doesn’t seem to agree with her.

“Sure,” he snorts, but he manages to get himself set right next to her, close enough that their arms are touching.

Lucy almost wants to laugh, because this feels so much like _before_ that it’s all too easy to close her eyes and forget that she isn’t back in the bunker, and for some reason that is the calmest that she’s felt since when she came back home.

“My room is too big,” she says, after a long, comfortable silence, because this is how it works, this is their _thing:_ sitting on a bed and just talking. “And it has _windows_ —” She can’t help snorting. “I know it’s stupid—” she tries to justify herself, but he raises his eyebrows at her, sceptically.

“Hey, I sleep with a _gun_ under my pillow,” he points out. “I’m not judging.”

She laughs a little at that, even though it isn’t really funny. “Guess we’re both a little messed up.”

“Yeah, apparently.”

Silence stretches out for a few moments too long, and Lucy somehow finds it in her to confess: “I kinda miss having a roommate.”

Flynn turns to her, a surprised expression on his face. “You mean—?” he asks, hesitantly, a flicker of hope hidden in his voice.

Lucy swallows heavily, but she manages to come up with a tentative smile to cover her fear of rejection – she’s pretty sure it has no reason to exist, not with him, but it’s still there.

“As I’ve said, my room is big. The bed is, uh— that’s big too, yeah.” She pauses, and he just keeps staring. “I—I mean— tomorrow we can get another bed in there or—or I don’t know, find another solution, but— I mean, for tonight maybe that could be— an idea, so. Uh. Yep.”

Flynn blinks at her. For a moment, Lucy wonders if she just broke him or something.

“Oh,” he finally gets out. He clears his throat. “Uh, yes, we could do that tonight. I don’t mind.”

A wave of relief washes through her, and she smiles with more heart than she’d thought possible in this hellish night.

**Author's Note:**

> This story is part of the [LLF Comment Project](https://longlivefeedback.tumblr.com/llfcommentproject), which was created to improve communication between readers and authors. This author invites and appreciates feedback, including: 
> 
>   * Short comments
>   * Long comments
>   * Questions
>   * “<3” as extra kudos
>   * Reader-reader interaction
> 

> 
> If you don’t want a reply, for any reason, feel free to sign your comment with “whisper” and I will appreciate it but not respond!


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